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Crinan Canal

As promised, the lock keepers started operations at 8:30 in the morning and finally closed the lock behind us. We made it through the basin in Crinan and entered lock 14.
The next 12 locks were to be operated by us. We teamed up with our friends from Bangor, Northern Ireland, Terry & Sharon, and motored down a very narrow canal through very green pastures and with amazing views to inspect the next lock (the first one we had to operate ourselves).
We worked out the routine, assigned jobs and went to work:

1. Open the lower lock to allow us to get in
2. Find the handle to move the sluices (holes inside lock – gates to let water in/out)
3. Close the sluices in the open locks
4. Get the boats into the lock and tie them up
5. close the lock (by putting your back into the very large wodden levers
6. Open sluice on port carefully and flush the lock
7. Open both sluices gradually to fill locks faster
8. Open upper lock
9. Move boats out of lock
10. Close lock
11. Close sluices

Run ahead and prepare next lock before the boats get there…

Repeat, repeat, repeat,…

We moved through 5 locks to reach the highest point, had lunch (waiting for other boats to come up hill from the other side) and started our journey downwards.

While it took us a lock or two to figure out and optimize the process, the team looked like a Formula 1 pitstop team quite quickly into our journey – a very memorable and fun experience in an amazing setting.

All’n all, the Crinan canal is 8 miles long, has 15 locks (of which we had to operate 11 ourselves) and a number of bridges.
Because the basin on the southern side did not have much to offer, we decided to move on and sail the roughly 10 nm to Tarbert.
We caught up with Terry and Sharon again and enjoyed a nice Indian meal (with way too much food and bring your own alcohol) – another memorable experience.
The evening was rounded off by an impromtu stop at pub at the corner where our crew showed their dance moves and enjoyed a nice glass of whiskey (with 1 ice cube).

By the way:

– we updated the tracker locations (on the top right hand side of the wordpress blog)
– lots of photos were added to the previous posts (no that we have high speed internet)
– there are usually lots of other photos on the second page (you can easily reach them by clicking on the photos on page 1, ie this page)